Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Large shrubs 1–2.5 m tall.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades lanceolate to oblanceolate or oblong, 5–15 cm long, 1–5 cm wide. Apex acute. Base acute-acuminate. Upper surfaces sparsely pubescent or glabrate; lower surfaces densely soft gray pubescent. Margins minutely toothed. Petioles 0.5–2 cm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers (1–)3 in cymes up to 20 mm long, pubescent with gold, gray, or white hairs, peduncles 2–7 mm long, terminal flower sessile, lateral ones on pedicels 1–2 mm long, these subtended by paired bracteoles. Flowers bisexual (perfect), strongly irregular. Calyx 5-parted, minute or rarely (Kaua'i) with acute lobes 5–10 mm long. Corolla funnelform–unilabiate, 5–parted, purple or rarely white, the tube split adaxially, 12–22 mm long, densely pubescent, the lobes 8–17 mm long, pubescent on outer surfaces, margins winged. Stamens 5, distinct, ± as long as corolla tube; anthers introrse, dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits, the pollen shed from the coherent anthers and collected by the indusium on the outgrowing style. Ovary inferior, ovoid, 2-celled; ovule placentation axile; style 18–23 mm long, exserted and protruding through the adaxially split tube, curved abruptly downward near stigma; stigma 1–2-lobed.

Fruit: Fruit drupaceous; 2–celled; dark purplish black; oblong; 6–12 rnm long; 4–10 mm wide; densely pubescent. Seeds 1 to numerous; with oily endosperm.

Ploidy: 2n = 16*

Habitat: Occurring in wet forest on ridges; in valleys; and in boggy areas.

Elevation Range: 600–1,400 m.